Iceland’s dilemma

You may have heard the story about the Kuwaiti pearl divers. Kuwait once had a thriving pearl industry, but after the discovery of oil there, the pearl divers changed careers. They made more money in the oil fields, doing less rigorous and dangerous work. Kuwait now has no pearl industry to speak of.

Icelanders seem to be aware that their impending energy boom could have a similar effect.

What Iceland has is much more electrical energy than it could possibly need, thanks to the presence of geothermal energy sources close to the surface. Now there’s talk of laying a submarine cable between Iceland and Scotland, about 700 miles away, and thence to Europe. Vast wealth is in store for Iceland, should this transmission system be built. But it could change Iceland, as the oil industry changed Kuwait. It’s a classic case of the law of unintended consequences.

Laying an underwater cable from the North Atlantic would probably cost more than $2 billion, and the idea is not popular with those who worry about Iceland — a country that takes pride in living by its own means in harsh isolation — becoming an ice-covered version of Middle East nations addicted to easy money from energy exports.

Backers of the cable “are looking for easy money, but who is going to pay in the end?” said Lara Hanna Einarsdottir, an Icelandic blogger who has written extensively on the potential risks involved in geothermal energy. “We will all pay.”

Iceland, Ms. Einarsdottir said, should use its energy sources to “supply ourselves and coming generations” and not gamble with Iceland’s unique heritage by “building more and more plants so that we can provide electricity to towns in Scotland.”